Good Books on, and in refutation of, Atheism

[Wesrock]

@Wozza

What perhaps lays on the other side is our uc existing in an infinite amount of time. Now we know an infinite amount of time doesn’t work in this universe because of entropy. But if nothing exists except the uc, then there is no problem at all. We can have temporal progression. Hence change.

For an infinite amount of time there was nothing, then our universe was created. If that’s not change then what is?

But speaking of importing assumptions, you’re proposing that the UC has existed for an infinite amount of time even prior to acting. That’s not what we believe. I feel like you’re picturing the UC as like a rock that is unchanged for 100 years, such that it’s in time. That is incorrect. The UC is timeless. When we say the UC is outside of time, we don’t just mean our time but that it might exist in some meta-time. We mean it has no dimension of time at all. The UC has acted across all time, but not for infinite time, since time is not infinite. That follows from its immutability and eternity, previously demonstrated. There were no different moments before it began to act. It has always been in act. Since it is immutable, it could not have gone from not acting to acting, as that would be a change, therefore there is no prior to it acting. It did also not do one act at the Big Bang, and another act now. It’s all one and the same act from one and the same eternity.

And in any case, there are reasonable proposals that time is not linear in any case and doesn’t ‘proceed’ as we know it. That time is part of existence as is space and as we move through it we sense temporal progression. But you could slice a piece of space-time and see the differences between one point and another. You could see change. Even if there are no ‘succesive moments’.

A world-block would not be a dodge around the cosmological arguments, as address in my topic The Existence of God: The Argument From Motion. Furthermore, even if there is a world block, I can’t speak for you, and I can’t speak for IWantGod, and I can’t speak for Trevize, but my experience changes. That is undeniable. Therefore, there is still change.

So your claim that the uc cannot temporally change can be rejected on those grounds alone.

Nah, you can’t get rid of us Thomists so easy.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

If there’s no real capacity for such a world it has no bearing on whether the First Cause could fail to exist.

And what does this “real capacity” mean? The whole concept of “possible world” is nothing but a thought experiment. Thought experiments are only limited by one constraint: they cannot contain a logical contradiction. There is nothing about physical or metaphysical possibility in them. Actually, many thought experiments were created to prove that certain assumptions are physically and metaphysically impossible - like the thought experiment which proves that faster than light motion is impossible.

This particular thought experiment does not care about the question of “first cause” (why do you capitalize it?), however proves that the concept of “necessary being” is incorrect. Since God is supposed be “necessary”, this thought experiment proves that there is and cannot be a “necessarily existing God”.

This thought experiment is nothing more than an attempt to define God out of existence with arbitrary, nominal definitions. It has no bearing or informational content on actual reality or possible reality. It uses the phrase “possible worlds” for worlds that aren’t actually possible. It’s a semantic quibble over the term necessary. If you wish to define necessary as existing in all logical even if impossible scenarios, so be it. I don’t care. It has no bearing on whether or not God could fail to exist.

Your reference to your essay is incorrect. I went and read the whole thread, and found many problems in your reasoning. Some of them have been pointed out by the posters Bradskii and Sophia. The last post in the thread was submitted by you, in which you promised to get back and answer some objections. This never happened. So you cannot refer back to an unfinished thread, which contains errors.

I can reference it all I want. That they weren’t responded to doesn’t prove Bradskii or Sophia’s objections correct. These things take significant though, which requires significant time, and I do have other responsibilities and needs. If you think their critiques are valid, bring them up.

 

[Wesrock]

Actually, none of the “first cause” or “sustaining cause” arguments work as intended. The concept of PSR is not universal, not all events need a sufficient reason, as a matter of fact, no “brute fact” needs a reason. That is why they are “brute facts”. The actions coming from our “free will” are not “caused”, so they contradict the PSR.

This is a failure of modern notions of causation. The causation of the will is perfectly valid in a Thomist presentation of causality and free will without violating the voluntary nature of our will. I dispute the notion of ontological brute facts.

It’s only in discussions about God that every atheist becomes a solipsist. Not to knock those dedicated solipsists, but only those who flee to it as a retreat. So quick to call opponents irrational, the so-called champions of rationality are perfectly fine to throw out the principles that rationality requires when it suits them. Without the PSR, you lose the ground you stand on when championing the power of reason, empiricism, and science. You cannot berate someone as irrational one moment, then essentially claim there is really no such thing as rationality the other, which is what throwing out the PSR is tantamount to.

 

[IWantGod]

It’s only in discussions about God that every atheist becomes a solipsist.

looooooooooooool, so true…

 

[Wozza]

But speaking of importing assumptions, you’re proposing that the UC has existed for an infinite amount of time even prior to acting. That’s not what we believe.

Whoa. Let’s stop right there.

Even when you are trying hard, you cannot get away from the fact that every concept of any given uc proposed in any way by anyone at any time is ALWAYS referrenced back to God. As I said at the begining, I can’t seem to get away from this problem.

At every stage, whatever is proposed, you either consciously or subconsciously think: ‘Well that’s not God, so it can’t be right’.

How can one have a discussion from first principles if the constant refrain, either stated or implied, is: ‘That’s not what we believe’.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

But speaking of importing assumptions, you’re proposing that the UC has existed for an infinite amount of time even prior to acting. That’s not what we believe.

Whoa. Let’s stop right there.

Even when you are trying hard, you cannot get away from the fact that every concept of any given uc proposed in any way by anyone at any time is ALWAYS referrenced back to God. As I said at the begining, I can’t seem to get away from this problem.

At every stage, whatever is proposed, you either consciously or subconsciously think: ‘Well that’s not God, so it can’t be right’.

How can one have a discussion from first principles if the constant refrain, either stated or implied, is: ‘That’s not what we believe’.

You’re crossing signals here. I was not speaking as a Christian, but as a natural philosopher. If you keep reading, you have an explanation from natural philosophy which justifies the statement.

 

[Wesrock]

Perhaps I will revise the Argument From Motion topic I made. Make things clearer, include responses to more objections at the end. I could do it better now with the experience. Of course, I’ve also been putting off a topic I’ve wanted to do titled An Argument for Philosophical Realism, so…

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Wesrock:

But speaking of importing assumptions, you’re proposing that the UC has existed for an infinite amount of time even prior to acting. That’s not what we believe.

Whoa. Let’s stop right there.

Even when you are trying hard, you cannot get away from the fact that every concept of any given uc proposed in any way by anyone at any time is ALWAYS referrenced back to God. As I said at the begining, I can’t seem to get away from this problem.

At every stage, whatever is proposed, you either consciously or subconsciously think: ‘Well that’s not God, so it can’t be right’.

How can one have a discussion from first principles if the constant refrain, either stated or implied, is: ‘That’s not what we believe’.

You’re crossing signals here. I was not speaking as a Christian, but as a natural philosopher. If you keep reading, you have an explanation from natural philosophy which justifies the statement.

I think you were speaking as a Christian natural philosopher. Your particular version of natural philosophy. Unless you are claiming to speak for all natural philosophers.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Wozza:

Wesrock:

But speaking of importing assumptions, you’re proposing that the UC has existed for an infinite amount of time even prior to acting. That’s not what we believe.

Whoa. Let’s stop right there.

Even when you are trying hard, you cannot get away from the fact that every concept of any given uc proposed in any way by anyone at any time is ALWAYS referrenced back to God. As I said at the begining, I can’t seem to get away from this problem.

At every stage, whatever is proposed, you either consciously or subconsciously think: ‘Well that’s not God, so it can’t be right’.

How can one have a discussion from first principles if the constant refrain, either stated or implied, is: ‘That’s not what we believe’.

You’re crossing signals here. I was not speaking as a Christian, but as a natural philosopher. If you keep reading, you have an explanation from natural philosophy which justifies the statement.

I think you were speaking as a Christian natural philosopher. Your particular version of natural philosophy. Unless you are claiming to speak for all natural philosophers.

I cannot lobotomize myself. Neither can others. I can only compartmentalize where I’m speaking from and what I’m referencing. I should not need to clarify this. I presented an argument from natural philosophy. I did not appeal to scripture or Church teaching in the making of it once I shifted gears in the previous post from a little aside. If the argument is faulty, that can be identified, again, without appeal to scripture or the Church. What I have written can stand by itself. You can either address it or dismiss it using a poisoning the well fallacy. Your choice.

 

[STT]

That’s what the discussion is about. Whether from first principles we can say that that is the only option available. Feel free to join in.

There is another possibility if “nothing” is unstable and time is eternal.

 

[LateCatholic]

Aquinas’ 5 ways refutes Atheism since logically proves existence (not essence) of God.

Those are Deist arguments not Theistic ones, and they’ve been refuted.

Don’t argue with an atheist, you will lose to the smart ones. None of the arguments about God’s existence hold up. But it doesn’t matter.

The right approach is to simply state that the specifics (ie Adam and Eve, the virgin birth, even the Resurrection, etc) are not critical to the ultimate worldview - that there is something greater that we should aspire to, beyond our limited physical existence. Reductionism does not provide a complete understanding of the natural world. There is the POSSIBILITY that a higher power exists, based on holistic phenomena. In other words, it’s not about PROVING God exists, it’s about HOPING God exists. And an atheist can never deny that God - in some form - could exist. That’s why it is religion and not science, and why it is faith not reason.

Christianity is one such framework for managing that worldview.
Many people (especially conservative Christians) despise the above rationale. But it’s the ONLY discussion you can have with an atheist and hope to “win”.
If you don’t believe me, fine. Keep it at. But EVERY theist vs atheist argument will fail if you hold to a logical and fair mind and seek the truth.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

That’s what the discussion is about. Whether from first principles we can say that that is the only option available. Feel free to join in.

There is another possibility if “nothing” is unstable and time is eternal.

Let’s add it to the list.

 

[LateCatholic]

the First Cause is not just the initiator of this universe, but the cause of all moments and things of reality other than itself

There are many problems with the “first cause” argument.

1. Keep in mind, first and foremost, even IF the proof is correct, it promotes a DEIST worldview NOT a THEIST worldview.
2. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is not supported by physics. Example, Hawking radiation has no cause.
3. First cause is logically inconsistent and suffers from fallacy of special pleading
4. Recent physics theories predict “big bangs” happen all the time, and that the concept of ‘first’ is meaningless.
5. Causality implies material transformation. In other words, for there to be a cause, there must be something ‘before’ that transforms. What did God ‘transform’ into creation? If there was something to transform, then the proof is false. If God transformed ‘himself’, then God no longer exists.
6. The ‘Universe’ is finite. Even if you subscribe to the proof, it does not prove ‘God’ exists, unless you agree that God is not all-powerful.
7. The proof does not verify God exists NOW. In fact, it actually promotes the idea that God does NOT exist now, because all other effects stem from that first cause, which was in the ancient past.
8. Even if the proof is true, all it does is indicate that there was some event in the past that exceeded an energy threshold and caused the big bang. For example, ‘God’ could simply be energy potential waves whereupon constructive interference reached a peak that exceeded a threshold, causing the big bang. If you want to define ‘God’ as energy potential waves, you can, but it’s not very satisfying.
9. The logic is flawed because it applies reductionist reason (everything has a cause) to the whole (the universe). For example, saying “all bricks are rectangular” does not imply “the wall is rectangular”. Specifically, things In the universe have a cause, but that doesn’t mean the WHOLE universe has a cause.
10. There are other refutations

Again, as I stated above, if you argue with an Atheist (I’m not one), you will lose. See my other post for my approach to this problem.

 

[Wesrock]

1. Keep in mind, first and foremost, even IF the proof is correct, it promotes a DEIST worldview NOT a THEIST worldview.

I’m curious how you define deist. In the lingo I’m used to, a Deist is someone who believes in a creating but non-interfering God, while (classical) Theists believe in a God who conserves reality in existence. The Five Ways and the other cosmological arguments I favor argue for a Theist conception of God. If you simply mean it does not prove Christian revelation exactly, I agree.

1. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is not supported by physics. Example, Hawking radiation has no cause.

I am having trouble finding support for Hawking radiation to be uncaused. Could you please provide a link? Even so, and I can review once you link it, I am pretty certain it will still fit into a Thomist notion of causality.

1. First cause is logically inconsistent and suffers from fallacy of special pleading

That it does not. Please explain where there’s any special pleading in the premises.

1. Recent physics theories predict “big bangs” happen all the time, and that the concept of ‘first’ is meaningless.

Irrelevant to the argument.

1. Causality implies material transformation. In other words, for there to be a cause, there must be something ‘before’ that transforms. What did God ‘transform’ into creation? If there was something to transform, then the proof is false. If God transformed ‘himself’, then God no longer exists.

You should know very well that God created from nothing. Nothing here is not a medium being used to create, but we’re simply explaining that God created out of no pre-existing medium. “Causality implies material transformation” here is a metaphysical assertion that I’d like to see you explain. While I would agree that everything in our experience or could physically be in our experience apart from Divine action does require on acting upon a pre-existing medium, this is because the greater the potency that is being reduced to act, the greater the act must be that reduces it to potency. To create from nothing, therefore, would be similar to overcoming “infinite potency.” Anything of bounded act/power (not God, by conclusion, not premise) could of course not create from anything that is not already actual, then. However, God is not bounded, or finite, and is Pure Act, and so the limitation does not apply.

1. The ‘Universe’ is finite. Even if you subscribe to the proof, it does not prove ‘God’ exists, unless you agree that God is not all-powerful.

A finite universe is not contrary to omnipotence. Omnipotence is classically understood by Thomists as having the power to cause all real and possibly real things, and this naturally follows if it’s demonstrated that any thing real or possibly real that is not God must be caused by God.

 

[Wesrock]

@LateCatholic

1. The proof does not verify God exists NOW. In fact, it actually promotes the idea that God does NOT exist now, because all other effects stem from that first cause, which was in the ancient past.

And you just unveiled yourself as someone who isn’t truly familiar with the arguments, since all of them have no concern with whether or not there is a start to the universe but with the necessity of God at any here and now.

1. Even if the proof is true, all it does is indicate that there was some event in the past that exceeded an energy threshold and caused the big bang. For example, ‘God’ could simply be energy potential waves whereupon constructive interference reached a peak that exceeded a threshold, causing the big bang. If you want to define ‘God’ as energy potential waves, you can, but it’s not very satisfying.

The few lines you often see quoted from the Summa Theologica are not where Thomists stop with the arguments. These are really just primer material for seminarians who have already been taught and need a refresher to call the arguments back to mind. It can be demonstrated from, say, the Argument from Motion (change) that the Prime Mover must be immutable, eternal, that there can only be one, omnipotence, omniscient, perfectly good, has a will, and is constantly conserving reality. That does not prove Christian revelation, true, but that’s much further than you’re saying.

1. The logic is flawed because it applies reductionist reason (everything has a cause) to the whole (the universe). For example, saying “all bricks are rectangular” does imply “the wall is rectangular”. Specifically, things In the universe have a cause, but that doesn’t mean the WHOLE universe has a cause.

Three things. One, none of the arguments have “everything as a cause” as a premise. Two, don’t commit a fallacy of accident. It’s true that if all the bricks are rectangular that the wall can’t be assumed to be rectangular. However, if all the bricks are red the wall certainly will be red. Three, the argument doesn’t concern itself with the universe as a whole but instead concerns itself with any one particular thing.

 

[Wesrock]

@LateCatholic

1. There are other refutations

And like most of the ones you posted, I’m sure there’s a lot of straw men in there.

Let me be a bit redundant for a second. There’s going to be disagreement, dispute, etc . . . around these arguments, but asserting that the arguments have “everything as a cause” as their premise is just blatantly false. It’s not true. That’s not something that can be argued. They don’t use that premise. That’s an oft repeated myth which may stem from a misreading of Descartes (though I’m not defending Descartes here or particularly interested in his arguments). But there’s no debate or argument to be had here. They. Don’t. Use. That. Premise.

Another oft-repeated and incorrect objection is that they only focus on what started creation. That may be true, I think, for something like the Kalam Cosmological Argument, but for Saint Thomas Aquinas, or adaptations of the PSR argument, and many others I would defend, again, that’s just blatantly not true. Saint Thomas Aquinas did not even think he could philosophically start with the premise that the universe had a beginning, so he refrained from making arguments around that point. All of his arguments are about a conserving God in the here and now. Fact. Whether they work or not is something I’ll debate, but it’s simply fact that they’re not just about what set the universe in motion, they’re about why any individual thing exists right now.

 

[Wesrock]

I have no idea who was the first person who came up with the notion of possible and necessary existence. But it is true that some believer would love to “prove” the idea that God exists necessarily. I already asked what would be the “real capacity” you talked about. No surprise that I received no answer.

How could you find out if a state of affairs is “possible” or not? Can you investigate all the (infinitely many) states of affairs?

The Thomist’s aim is only to show that God cannot fail to exist. That’s all that is meant by necessary.

I had thought real capacity would be evident from the rest. A simple example is that I have a real capacity to speak. I do not have a real capacity to move things with my mind. In terms of omnipotence, it could be said that there is no real capacity to create a square circle, therefore there’s no actual lack of power if God cannot create a square circle. Lastly, in terms of worlds that are possible, I simply mean a world that could actually be real. A world of a single electron that is uncaused my contain no logical contradictions, but that doesn’t mean it is something that could ever possibly be. I can imagine a jelly bean without size or color, but that doesn’t mean there’s a metaphysical possibility for a jelly bean without size or color. I mean, that’s the important distinction. Metaphysical possibility is not the same as logical possibility. It is not necessary to examine every particular. I make no claim to know all possible physical laws, but the PSR, causality, non-contradiction, identity, are universal metaphysical principles. The physical laws of any such universe might seem nigh unintelligible to our perceptions, mind bending, other than our experience, but the metaphysical principles are universal.

The “modern” notion of causation, you say? The one to which you owe all the science and technology? Bite the hand that feeds you? If you deny the existence of “brute facts”, then you deny God - the quintessential “brute fact”.

Again, I do not claim that God exists without reason. Two, I’d be interested in what you consider to be actualy brute facts that you believe are so we can expand on this. Three, modern causality fits snugly right into Thomist notions. The issue is that modern causality is a more restricted understanding, typically only concerns efficient causality, and is typically restricted to only a materialist understanding. If LateCatholic gives some info on Hawking radiation I should have an opportunity to expand.

 

[Wesrock]

You don’t understand. The PSR is fine in 99.9999… percent of the time. It is just not universal.

Now this is a case of special pleading. There’s no way to delineate but arbitrarily, and you ultimately must admit there’s no way to be certain anything has sufficient reason or requires sufficient reason.

Since “nothing” is just a concept, not an ontologically existing “something…”

…

…

That’s exactly what I said. I specifically clarified after stating “creating from nothing” that I didn’t mean “nothing” as a medium at all… precisely because it’s not an ontologically existing thing, and even then went on to clarify that the phrase only means no pre-existing material was used. No thing was transformed.

Oh well. That’s what you get for talking with an atheist.

 

[LateCatholic]

Deist is someone who believes in a creating but non-interfering God

Right - The First Cause argument is a Deist argument. Please elaborate on how it promotes a “theist” argument. It is literally in the definition of Deism.

it will still fit into a Thomist notion of causality.

This gets into what your definition of an ‘event’ is. From a philosophical standpoint - and physics - if you have “true nothing”, call it “null”, then nothing can happen. But in terms of reality, there is no ‘null’. Even the vacuum has statistical properties. And give the properties of quantum fluctuations in the vacuum, then yes, things can “appear” for no ‘cause’. Perhaps “reason” may be a better word. But the fact remains, in quantum mechanics, in our reality, things can appear for no reason, at least at the quantum level.

I guess you could say that the “vacuum” and it’s 'associated quantum statistical properties" IS GOD. In that case, God causes even these quantum effects. But again - what are you accomplishing if you are defining “God” as “the probability field in the reality vacuum causing quantum fluctuations.”

Please explain where there’s any special pleading in the premises.

Your premise:
the First Cause is not just the initiator of this universe, but the cause of all moments and things of reality other than itself

By DEFINITION, your use of the term ‘other’ creates the fallacy of special pleading. This is a common refutation for many “theistic” proofs. When you say things like “everything has a beginning, EXCEPT God”, or “everything has a cause, OTHER THAN God”, your proof IMMEDIATELY fails. The reason being that special pleading can apply to ANY aspect. For example, I can simply say that the “universe has no cause” or the “universe has no beginning”. Logically it makes no difference if “God” IS “the universe”.

Irrelevant to the argument.

Very relevant. The proofs you reference all require the concept of a “beginning”. If universe creation is ‘infinite’, and universes are created all the time, there is no need for a “first” cause. I know it is hard to get your head around this, but this is how reality appears to be.

 

[LateCatholic]

God created out of no pre-existing medium.

The problem here is that if you state that God created the universe out of no pre-existing medium, then the concept of causality no longer applies. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Causality REQUIRES a pre-existing medium. That’s in the definition. The proof is thus invalid.

To create from nothing, therefore, would be similar to overcoming “infinite potency.”

Your now referring to ontological proofs of God, which are even more perilous than first cause proofs. Ontological proofs are bad news because they just as easily prove God DOESN’T exist. Most theists avoid them.

However, God is not bounded, or finite, and is Pure Act, and so the limitation does not apply.

Again - you cannot have your cake and eat it too. If you want to say God (or his creation) is not bounded by the laws of causality, you can then not use causality to prove God exists.

A finite universe is not contrary to omnipotence.

No, but it doesn’t PROVE omnipotence. If you define God as omnipotent, then the proof does not accomplish what it sets out to do. Remember, none of my comments are saying God DOESN’T exists. I am just pointing out that these proofs are flawed and are effectively useless.

Omnipotence is classically understood by Thomists as having the power to cause all real and possibly real things,

If you define omnipotence as “having the power to cause all real and possibly real things” then clearly the proof fails because all possible things don’t exist. You’ve taken a step back here.